Thursday 4, March 1999
Thursday 4, March 1999
Hot News
from Aziz Haniffa in Washington, D.C.
March 3 - The Clinton Administration and members of Congress on Tuesday slammed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for its continuing wanton violence against innocent civilians and conscription of child soldiers in its war against the Sri Lankan Security Forces.
George Pickart, a senior Administration official in the State Department's South Asia Bureau, said, "While we have seen improvements in the Government's record, regrettably, we have seen no signs that the LTTE wants to improve its human rights record or abandon terrorism."
Testifying at a hearing convened by the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, Pickart noted, "The LTTE apparently took no prisoners on the battlefield again," in 1998, "and systematically intimidated and undermined the civil administration of Jaffna."
He said 1998, "brought additional confirmation that the LTTE uses children as front line troops."
"Continuing LTTE threats against the courts and civil administration in Jaffna seriously hamper the investigation of the Chemmani grave allegation," he said.
Pickart urged the LTTE "to take unambiguous and effective steps to improve its human rights record, on and off the battlefield, and abandon its use of terrorism."
He rattled of a laundry list of human rights violations perpetrated by the LTTE, which he said, included "extrajudicial killings, torture, disappearances, arbitrary arrests, detentions, extortion, and terrorist bombings."
Pickart said, "The LTTE has discriminated against ethnic and religious minorities and denied basic civil and political rights in the areas under their control."
"The LTTE," he continued, "has left a long trail of blood, including the assassination of Sri Lankan President Premadasa, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and numerous Sri Lankan politicians."
Pickart said that in the past year alone, the LTTE had bombed one of Sri Lanka's holiest Buddhist sites, the "Temple of the Tooth", in Kandy, assassinated two consecutive mayors of Jaffna, "and is widely believed to be responsible for shooting down a civilian aircraft, killing 55 people."
"Pickart noted that the Administration had "designated the LTTE as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997 and it clearly deserves that label."
He said that "as poor as the Government's performance on human rights has been, it is important to remember that these abuses do not occur in a vacuum, and that the Government has demonstrated a desire to improve conditions."
"Most importantly," he emphasized, "the Sri Lankan Government has commendably sought to end this tragic war, which more than anything else would eliminate the conditions that give rise to the abuses."
Pickart pointed out that President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga "initiated a peace effort upon coming to power in 1994, but returned to the battlefield when the Tigers broke the ceasefire and attacked the Sri Lankan Navy in 1995."
He also noted that the Kumaratunga Government "has sought over the past three years to meet autonomy demands with a proposal to devolve governmental powers to the provinces."
Despite these moves, Pickart said, there had been no "serious or credible signal from the LTTE that it desires true negotiations or is prepared to give up its demands for an independent state."
Congressman Eni Faleomavaega, a Democrat, who chaired the hearing, asserted that "the terrorist campaign waged by the Tamil Tigers has been incredibly brutal and destructive, and marked by human rights atrocities. It is not surprising that our Secretary of State designated the Tamil Tigers as a foreign terrorist organization."
While acknowledging that violations of human rights by the Government defense forces should not be overlooked either. Faleomavaega, a 11-year veteran on the powerful House International Committee, said, "we should never forget the fact that the democratically-elected Government of Sri Lanka is fighting against terrorism to protect the people of the country and to preserve the sovereignty, unity and integrity of the nation."
Rep. Frank Pallone, New Jersy Democrat, who counts among his constituents a fair number of Sri Lankan Americans, both Tamils and Sinhalese, said, "I am very disturbed by the terrorist campaign of the LTTE."
"You all know," he said, "the U.S. and Canada have designated the LTTE as a foreign terrorist organization. This upcoming October, we expect Congress and the Administration to again designate the LTTE as a terrorist group."
"Recent reports on action taken by the present Sri Lankan Government to improve the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, I think should be taken note of," he said, and enumerated specific efforts taken by the Kumaratunga administration to alleviate specific human rights issues.
On the Chemmani Grave case in Jaffna, Pallone, who chairs the Congressional Caucus on Sri Lanka, said, "The judicial process unfortunately has been postponed due to LTTE death threats towards the judges in the Jaffna courts."
He also refuted allegations that the Sri Lankan Government denies food and other basic necessities to the Wanni area.
Pallone said that U.N. agencies and foreign NGOs "have noted the Sri Lankan Government's effort to provide food to the Tamils living in this area."
He also pointed out that in the Krishanti Kumaraswamy case, "a trial was held and the court ruled that six members of the Sri Lankan Government's Security Force Personnel were guilty of violating human rights, and they were sentenced to death."
Meanwhile, Pallone said that as a result of investigations of disappearances in Sri Lanka, "more than 100 security force personnel have been charged for violating human rights."
And lastly with regard to the disappearance of school children, Pallone said, "six Security Force personnel and one school principal were found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison".
"Amnesty International has commended the action that the Sri Lankan Government has taken in this case, and has called upon the international community to follow Sri Lanka's example of punishing human rights violaters," Pallone said.
He said he believed the Kumaratunga Government "is actively improving its human rights record."
Pallone said, "My fear is that the human rights situation in Sri Lanka will be misrepresented due to sweeping generalizations and possibly biased reports and the materials that are examined by this Congressional Human Rights Caucus should be unbiased, accurate, and impartial, so as to serve the objectives of investigating the human rights situation in Sri Lanka."
He was apparently referring to the activities by the pro-Eelam and pro-LTTE lobbies, which had engineered the hearing -the second on Sri Lanka within the past six months obviously with the intention of trying to embarrass the Sri Lankan Government for alleged human rights violations.
The hearing was invariably a miserable flop as far as these groups because both co-chairs of the Caucus, Reps. Tom Lantos, California Democrat, and John Porter, Illinois Republican did not attend.
Their aides told the Daily News that they were otherwise occupied. Lantos made a cameo appearance for less than five minutes, but sat at the press table and after perusing the opening remarks his aide had drafted for him, left without saying a word.
If these groups were hoping that Amnesty International would give their efforts a fillip - that too, was not to be.
Steve Rickard, Washington Director of Amnesty International who was among the private witnesses who testified, while nothing human rights violations by Government Security Forces and continue distances of "disappearances", said, "We are concerned that the conduct of the Tigers continue to abuse international humanitarian standards and the laws of war."
Rickard said even though the Tigers had pledged not to recruit child soldiers, "there are a number of heartbreaking incidents that provide credible reports that this practice continues."
In the question and answer session, Pickart said he had "no recollection of the government denying access to any international human rights organisations."
He acknowledged that fund-raising activities by "overseas Tamils", on behalf of the LTTE, was "one of the reasons that gave rise to the legislation to designate them as a foreign terrorist organisation.
Pickart said, "there are still opportunities for them clandestinely to raise funds and to transfer them, but we are doing the best to implement the laws."
Meanwhile, he strongly indicated that the administration would continue to list the LTTE as a terrorist organisation, when the designation comes up for review in October. "I can tell you at this point, we've seen precious little evidence to suggest that that designation will change," he said.
In this testimony, Pickart acknowledged that "the United States frequently counters suggestions and appeals for greater involvement in resolving the conflict."
"While we wish to be helpful and supportive, we believe that Sri Lanka's conflict is fundamentally for the Sri Lankans themselves to resolve," he said.
Pickart declared that "prospects for peace can improve and a role for others can be established only to the extent that the Government, the Opposition UNP, the LTTE and the Tamil community want it to happen."
"That said, "nonetheless, Pickart noted, "we are open to playing a constructive, facilitative role in ending Sri Lanka's conflict."
He recalled that when Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Karl F. Inderfurth had visited Sri Lanka last month, Inderfurth had said the "U.S. is willing to facilitate a negotiated political solution, if the government and the LTTE ask for us to play such a role which at this point they have not."
Pickart said, "We will continue to remain engaged in Sri Lanka and hope our efforts will help bring an end to this tragic war so that the people of Sri Lanka can come to terms with some of the horrors of their past and work earnestly and more effectively for a better future."
At the beginning of his testimony, Pickart had said that the 16-year-old civil war in Sri Lanka "is one of the unheralded tragedies of our times.".
"This war is made all the more tragic because of Sri Lanka's great unfulfilled potential," he added, particularly since "Sri Lanka has an effective democratic system and the strongest human social indicators in the South Asia region."